Frederick Eby, comp., Education in Texas
Source Materials, (Austin: University of Texas, 1918), pp. 516-535;
Colorado Citizen, May 11, 1871. The Constitution of 1869 had required that
the legislature compel all children between six and eighteen years old to attend
either a public or a private school for at least four months each year. The 1870
law attempted to do so, but provided only the weakest of penalties, stipulating
that if its children failed to attend school, the county would forfeit its
"interest in the school fund for the time being," but affording no punishment
for the parents.